Doyle Hufstedler was an All-American sort of guy. He was an Eagle Scout. He proposed to his wife on bended knee in front of a full football stadium. He became a leader in the Army. He was looking forward to the birth of his first child.
Hufstedler never got the chance to meet her. He was killed at war in Iraq at age 25, six weeks before the birth of his daughter Grace. A first lieutenant, Hufstedler was one of five soldiers with the 1st Infantry Division attacked north of Fallujah, Iraq, on March 31, 2004. They were killed when a bomb exploded beneath their armored personnel carrier.
Doyle Hufstedler III grew up in Abilene, Tex., the son of Doyle Hufstedler Jr. and Kathleen Hufstedler . Family friend Bill Libby, a former Army chaplain, said "He was just the kind of All-American boy that everyone would want."
An Eagle Scout, "Little Doyle ," his nickname to distinguish him from his father, embodied the Boy Scout motto, which speaks to honoring God and country and being dutiful to both, he said.
"He was a man of honor, integrity," Libby said.
He swam on the Abilene High School team for three years but was "not a big-time athlete," Libby said. All the time he was in high school he wanted to attend Texas A&M and be a member of the Corps of Cadets. Despite a counselor's prediction that Hufstedler 's dyslexia would make it impossible to graduate, Hufstedler prevailed and graduated, serving in the corps for four years.
There he met Leslie, who was a year ahead of him in college. It was love at first sight, she said. Although he didn't know it, she stayed around College Station to be near him as he finished his last year. At halftime of the annual rivalry game with Texas, Doyle was waiting on his knee at the end of the saber arch' made by fellow cadets. Leslie walked under the arch and said yes.
"He loved being a husband," Leslie said. "He was so excited about being a father, too. He would stand in 140-degree heat in Iraq for two hours just to call me. He was a very passionate person."
Leslie said Doyle 's soldiers always came first for him. "He was very loyal. When he believed in something, he believed in it 110 percent."
Doyle 's Army experience included six months at Fort Leonard Wood, then a move to Fort Riley on March 31, 2003. The Hufstedlers lived in a house on Humboldt, four blocks from the K-State campus. While here, Leslie and Doyle got involved in the First United Methodist Church, they liked to go to Pillsbury Crossing for picnics, and to City Park for the Arts in the Park concerts.
Doyle also liked to work in his woodshop in the basement, and he loved working on a 1940s-era Jeep, Leslie said.
He deployed to Iraq on Sept. 8, 2003. Although he knew the area he was assigned to, west of Baghdad, would be dangerous, "he shielded me a lot," Leslie said. She said she talked to him the day before he was killed - she had sent him the ingredients to make a chili Frito pie, one of his favorites.
A few days before, he had managed to call his parents. He told them a story about a little Iraqi boy who had come up to him in a village and taken his hand.
"God loves you," Libby recounted the little boy said in English.
So when his parents asked Hufstedler what he wanted them to send him, there was little hesitation.
"He said immediately, send me boxes of school supplies for little kids,'" Libby said.
